OPINION: Selling through interactive video content

Get in front of your customer. Show them how your product works and tell them how it will change their lives. Then, and this is the important bit, let them have a go to see how truly amazing it really is. Nine times out of 10 you will make a sale

It’s the oldest selling strategy in the world, but can it be digitised?

Interactive video content has been around for quite some time with the gaming industry leading the charge. They have been the creators of the ultimate in interactive real life entertainment. Ground breaking games like SiMS and Grand Theft Auto allowed you to create your own destiny (within a framework) and enabled you to dictate the outcome of a particular situation. Then came motion control interface from Wii and a couple of days ago Microsoft launched the new line of Kinect games with voice control interface that has rocked the gaming world.

Such amazing innovation, but what about the communications industry? Is this an opportunity that is waiting to be realised? Great sales people are hard to find, they are expensive and they can’t be everywhere. So what could interactive video content do for an imaginative brand?

We live in an era where people want to know more, they want to know their options and they want to emulate certain looks and behaviours. And here lies the opportunity

A company in the US called Pixazza have a very interesting way of telling customers how to get the look. They have partnered with celebrity sites such as Access Hollywood and OK Magazine. As a reader interacts with an image on the site, a starlet on the red carpet for example, an info card pops up, and visually analyses the outfit, explains where to get similar pieces, and in some instances facilitates the sale.

You don’t pay for celebrity endorsement and the product information comes from a community of category experts. Great idea. But it gets better as now they have introduced video content onto the info cards and the first to use this is Universal with the launch of Bridesmaids. Video content that is totally relevant to the audience. Amazing and full of potential.

Take this situation and imagine touch screen displays in shopping centers that allow customers to interact with products and then direct them to point of purchase. Not a list of shops but a gallery of beautiful clothes that inspire and sell.

What if supermarkets provided people with meal plans for the week. Showed them options via video and then allowed direct sale and delivery via ecommerce?

The technology is here and the passion to do this with marketers is here. Facebook definitely sees the potential as it has announced its system to award Facebook Credits to members who watch video ads. I believe as an industry we need to step up to the challenge and start getting very creative. It can’t just be about the view it has to be about the resulting action.